Preschool Children’s Representation of Numbers on a Linear Number Line: Implications to Teaching and Learning of Number Concepts
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: A basic challenge in understanding human cognitive development is to understand how children acquire number concepts.The Hindu-Arabic number system represents amounts of objects by number symbols, without referring to other properties of these objects (e.g., color, size).That is to say that the number symbols, like many other symbols, are linked to the objects that they represent in an arbitrary but agreed upon manner with fixed representation rules.Therefore, when the number system is used in a teaching-learning process, the child is required to perform a relatively complicated cognitive process.This paper reports on a research project that was carried out to investigate preschool children's mapping of numbers onto the linear number lines.A total of thirty 5 and 6 year old preschool children were interviewed individually in a number-space task with three sets of number lines that is 1 -10, 1 -20 and 1 -100.Preliminary findings suggest that children understood the task and adopted a consistent strategy of mapping consecutive numbers onto consecutive location.Implications of the findings to the teaching of mathematics at preschool level will be discussed.
DOI: 10.9790/0837-1468792
Author: Munirah Ghazali
Institution: Universiti Sains Malaysia
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2329435342